On October 20, 2021 the European Parliament approved the Resolution on a farm to fork strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system.

After a long procedure and a debate that involved NGOs, Farmers organizations and decisions makers, the European Parliament approved on 20.10.2021 the Resolution on a farm to fork strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system.

Welcoming the ambitions and goals of the Strategy, the members of the European Parliament “emphasise the inextricable links between healthy people, healthy societies, healthy animals, and a healthy planet”.

After the long debates surround the CAP, the resolution is a positive development. It highlights the need for coherence between European policies in favour of the environment and biodiversity. Indeed, the Resolution takes also into account the role of Protected Areas, emphasising the need:

• “to ensure coherence between the farm to fork strategy and the objectives of the European Green Deal;
• to maintain and enhance biodiversity for safeguarding EU and global food security;
• for coherence with the EU biodiversity strategy, including the contribution of Natura2000 and Marine Protected Areas to supporting healthy food production;
• for consistency regarding the common agricultural policy (CAP), common fisheries policy (CFP), EU trade policies and the EU bioeconomy strategy”.

By connecting the Farm to Fork Strategy to the Common Agricultural Policy, the European Parliament points out some notions that are at the core of the rural Protected Areas’ actions and of EUROPARC’s message for the new CAP, such as:

• “extensive permanent grassland-based, silvo-pastoral or extensive organic animal husbandry, often involving pastures of high environmental value, are key features of the European food system;
• quality schemes are a defining element of many traditional rural communities, allowing them to make productive use of land that otherwise would have been abandoned;
• land-based and low density agricultural production can have multiple positive effects for the environment and for the conservation of cultural landscapes, contributes to protecting rural areas from depopulation and abandonment, helps in mitigating against climate change, and contributes to a circular economy and biodiversity restoration and must therefore be supported and encouraged;
• support should be given to farms making the transition to more sustainable forms of production”.

by Gerd Altmann, Pixabay

Moreover, EUROPARC welcomes that the European Parliament “calls on the Commission to only approve CAP national strategic plans which clearly demonstrate a commitment to sustainability from the economic, environmental and social perspectives and are in line with the objectives of the European Green Deal, the relevant EU-wide targets and the Paris Agreement”.

The Resolution is available here in all languages.

Read more about Farm to Fork Strategy and EUROPARC here.